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Diane Downs, the mother who shot her children, killing one of them, pleads to her parole board via video conferenceo for her release after nearly 25 years in prison in December 2008, in Salem. She was denied parole. Her next hearing is in 2020.
(Rick Bowmer/ The Associated Press)

A bill moving
through the U.S. Senate would punish infamous murderers such as Oregon's Christian
Longo, Kip Kinkel and Keith Jesperson if they knowingly profit from the sale of
their letters, artwork or other memorabilia.

Their mementos
and those of at least five others – a who's who of the state's most savage
killers – have found their way onto the online industry known as "murderabilia."

Thirty bucks
will buy a set of letters from Ward Weaver III, serving a life term for killing
two middle school girls in Oregon City, and his father, Ward Weaver Jr., who
has been on California's Death Row since 1985.

It's not
entirely clear who is profiting – other than online dealers – from the
correspondence of such killers as Diane Downs, who shot her three children, and
Jesperson, the "Happy Face Killer." But $175 fetches a Downs kiss-off letter to
a would-be pen pal.

The Stop the
Sale of Murderabilia Act of 2013, introduced last September, marks the third attempt
by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to pass a law that imposes additional years
in prison on violent prisoners who sell their mementos.

Cornyn's bill,
introduced with U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., would not punish the thriving
industry promulgated by websites such as serialkillersink.com and
murderauction.com.The bill also
does not target people outside prisons who sell letters they receive from the
likes of Randy Woodfield, a former Portland State University football star
known as the "I-5 Killer."

View full sizeU.S. Senator John Cornyn, R-TexasU.S. Sen. John Cornyn official photo

The Texas
senator's attempts to pass such a law in 2007 and 2010 died in committee. But
he and Klobuchar's efforts to downsize the murderabilia trade gained traction
recently, when a letter by Fort Hood mass killer Nidal Hasan recently sold on
one of the sites.

Eight states –
Alabama, California, Florida, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, Texas and Utah –
have passed laws that prevent inmates from profiting from the sale of their
mementos.

Some Oregon
prison officials find the murderabilia trade ghastly, but they have little
power to prevent, say, Ward Weaver, from creating paintings and other work in
prison – some of which has found its way on online.

Colette Peters,
director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, plans to meet with her
legislative and policy staff, along with the governor's office, to take a
position on the bill, said Betty Bernt, her chief spokeswoman.

"It is of upmost
importance to us at ODOC that we do everything within our power to prevent
further victimization and trauma to crime victims and their families," Peters
said in a written statement to The Oregonian.

Andy Kahan, who
coined the term "murderabilia," has fought for 14 years to end the macabre
trade. His crusade met with an early success: eBay booted the products off its
online auction site.

Here's what Kahan
would tell Oregon officials: "You have individuals in your penitentiary who
have committed some of the most cold-blooded and diabolical crimes in your
state's history. They just simply shouldn't be allowed to operate a business –
which is what this is – and make money off of (their) infamy."

Kahan, who
serves as crime victims advocate for the city of Houston, hopes the Senate
Judiciary Committee finally holds a hearing on the subject.

"We're hoping
the third time will be the charm," he said. "If I can get a hearing, and show
senators exactly what's going on in this industry, then I think we'll be
successful."

Kahan, a former
parole officer in Texas, has much to show.

Over the years,
he has purchased a small but ghastly collection that includes a swastika
fashioned from the hair of Charles Manson. He uses the items for shock value, much
like a prosecutor gripping an ax in a murder trial.

Kahan's quest
began in the fall of 1999, when he learned about what was then a fledgling
online industry for crime memorabilia. He would eventually find serial killers'
personal effects – including fingernail clippings, hair samples and bodily
fluids – on sale.

View full sizeChristian Longo, who killed his family on the Oregon Coast in 2001, was caught shortly after he was added to the Most Wanted list.The Associated Press

He estimates that
more than half of the mementos sold online put money in inmates' prison
accounts; profiteers outside prisons sell the rest. Example: Someone writes an
infamous killer, gets a handwritten response, and sells it on an online murderabilia
site.

Kahan took a
novel approach to figuring out how serial killers felt about the trade. He
wrote to 20 of the most notorious killers in America to tell them about the
trade, and a dozen responded.

He came up with
two unconventional allies: David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam serial killer who
terrorized New York in the 1970s, and Susan Atkins-Whitehouse, a member of the
Manson Family, which murdered seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate,
in 1969.

Berkowitz's
memorabilia was lampooned in a 1995 episode of the sit-com "Seinfeld," in which
the character Kramer used a mailbag belonging to the Son of Sam as collateral
for a gambling debt. But the real Berkowitz, behind bars for decades, joined
forces with Kahan, sending him come-ons from collectors hoping to profit from
his mementos.

Kahan
acknowledges that he and Berkowitz make an odd alliance. After all, talk of
publishing houses offering Berkowitz big-advance book deals prompted "Son of
Sam" laws that forbid criminals from profiting from their crimes.

Atkins-Whitehouse
wrote Kahan a letter in January 2000 saying she had never authorized anyone to
sell her likeness or signature. She noted that the sale of murderabilia
encourages unscrupulous people to steal her personal property and prison
records.

"Would you
please write to me and tell me if there are any legal means of putting an end
to this type of reprehensible practice," she wrote. "It makes me look callous
and unremorseful, which I'm not, and is disrespectful of those who lost their
loved ones."

The American
Civil Liberties Union takes a dim view of efforts to stifle freedom of speech.
But the ACLU's public comments about murderabilia have been somewhat
restrained.

David Fidanque,
executive director of the Oregon ACLU for more than 20 years, wondered about
the aims of murderabilia foes. If the goal is to deter serial killers and other
high-profile murderers from selling their mementos, he asked, would another 10
years in prison mean anything?

Most of the
inmates whose wares end up online already sit on the nation's death rows, or
are serving long prison terms or life without parole.

The Cornyn-Klobuchar
bill would punish offending inmates by fining them and stacking prison terms of
six months to 10 years on their sentences.

Oregon
Department of Corrections rules allow inmates to create artwork and other crafts
in prison hobby shops, and they are allowed to sell them in consultation with
prison officials. But prisoners are forbidden from conducting business
transactions by mail without written consent.

State law is
clear that when an inmate profits from, say, a book or movie re-enactment about
his or her crime, money goes into an escrow account to satisfy their judgments
and restitution of crime victims.

Ward Weaver at the time of his sentencing, listens to his defense attorney, Peter Fahy, left, during the reading of the charges against him by Clackamas Couty Circuit Judge, Robert Herndon. He sentenced Weaver to 2 life terms. Bob Ellis/The Oregonian

It's not clear
how colored-pencil drawings of a skull and Confederate flag by Ward Weaver III
ended up for sale on the website of Dark Vomit's Macabre and Outsider Art
Gallery, with an asking price of $75. What is clear is that the site hawks the
work with a 400-word summary of Weaver's life and crimes, credited to Wikipedia.

Also for sale on
murderabilia websites: A 2003 prison photo of Dayton Leroy Rogers, the Molalla
Forest Killer ($30); a letter and envelope from Kip Kinkel, who killed his
parents in Springfield before embarking on a shooting rampage at Thurston High
School ($50); and a letter from Christian Longo, who murdered his wife and
three children on the Oregon coast ($40).

Jerome "Jerry"
Brudos, known as the "Lust Killer," died in an Oregon prison in 2006, but his
letters still fetch up to $85.

Kahan's murderabilia
investigation shows that prisoners who sell mementos through dealers find
sneaky ways to distance themselves from their businesses. They often send artwork
and other mementos to intermediaries on the outside, who funnel the goods to
dealers.

Profits, Kahan
said, often end up on prisoners' "books" – accounts they can draw from to
purchase such items as toothbrushes, writing tablets and TVs.

"I'm a firm believer in free enterprise and capitalism," he said. "But I think
you have to draw the line somewhere. You just shouldn't be allowed to rob, rape
and murder, and then turn around and make a profit off of it."

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